After more than a decade of stalling on promises to eliminate horse-drawn carriages from Central Park, the City Council recently took its most aggressive step yet, voting 40 to 7 to terminate all carriage medallions and outlaw the use of horses in the park by 2028. The move will kill an estimated 200 jobs and zero out 68 licenses valued at more than $25 million.

Now comes the hard part: actually fulfilling the Council’s flowery but vague promises of a fair process and greater public safety. Councilmembers, keenly aware that the last three Speakers tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a ban, lavished praise on one another and on Julie Menin, the current Speaker, for “getting it done.” Tom Allon, publisher of City & State, dubbed Menin “The Horse Heroine.”

“Passing this law proves not simply that we are committed to making our city safer and more livable for residents, tourists, and animals alike,” said Menin, “it proves that we can live up to the commitments that we make.”

But things get a little murkier when you try to define exactly what the Council accomplished.  The bill, in tentative language, gives Mayor Zohran Mamdani until next April to “develop and implement a program to assist owners of horses used in the operation of horse-drawn cabs and owners of horse-drawn cabs that includes consideration of whether to establish a program to compensate horse-drawn cab owners for the value of their horse-drawn cab........

© Daily Intelligencer